OREANDA-NEWS. In addition to banking, Danske Bank operates in Estonia in the area of asset management (Danske Capital).

Aivar Rehe, the CEO of Danske Bank, comments on the financial results for the first nine months of 2013 as follows:

“Danske Bank maintained strong financial results and high efficiency in the third quarter. The bank's high liquidity made it possible to support well-considered lending activities.

“ROE before loan impairment charges in Q3 was as high as 70.5%, and the cost/income ratio was kept down to 32.4%.

“Danske Bank will continue to carry out its strategy, whose key words are first-class customer service, high liquidity, thoroughly considered risk management and stable financial activities.

“Danske Bank's liquidity is very strong. The surplus of deposits to loans re-mained strong. On 30 September, deposits exceeded loans by EUR 681 mil-lion.

“The bank increased its lending considerably in the third quarter, registering 8% growth. It has focused on lending to financially strong local and interna-tional companies, and it dominated public procurements by winning around 80% of them. Good loan growth is based on the development of company business models in cooperation with clients and highly competitive lending terms.

“The bank's income for the period was EUR 52.9 million (EUR 48.6 million), an increase of EUR 4.3 million, or 8.8%.

“The bank's operating expenses for the period were EUR 19.9 million (EUR 19.1 million). They rose EUR 0.8 million, or 3.7%.

“As a result, profit before loan impairment charges rose to EUR 33.0 million (EUR 29.5 million), an increase of EUR 3.5 million, or 12.1%.

“The amount of provisions made in the first nine months of 2013 was consid-erably smaller than in the same period of 2012. The bank's net profit for the period amounted to EUR 43.2 million.

“Danske Bank manages assets highly efficiently: ROE before loan impairment charges in the period was 56.2% (41.7%).

“Danske Bank had the best deposit/loan ratio of all large banks operating in Estonia. At the end of September, the ratio was 62.9% (72.9%).

“The efficiency of the bank's activities is very high. The cost/income ratio in the period was 37.6% (39.4%).

“The decline in the size of the loan portfolio slowed considerably. The total amount of loans and leasing at the end of September was EUR 1.16 billion (EUR 1.22 billion).

“Danske Bank holds a strong position on the deposit market, having reached the level of EUR 1.84 billion (EUR 1.67 billion).

“Danske Bank observes the conservative loan portfolio assessment policy of the Danske Bank Group but did not create additional provisions in the first nine months of the year, and the quality of the loan portfolio is improving strongly.

“The ratio of the loan impairment reserve to the loan portfolio at the end of September was 4.0% (6.7%), which is the most conservative among large banks in Estonia.

“Clients used the bank's settlement services actively, and the number of pay-ments they made rose in 2013. The number of international payments made by customers in the period rose more than 22%.

“Danske Bank introduced a new data communication channel for companies at the end of the third quarter: Danske LiveGate. LiveGate makes it possible for companies to perform banking transactions directly in their business software, and the solution makes companies' business operations considera-bly faster, simplifies their settlement processes, and reduces the risks asso-ciated with banking operations. The ISO 20022 XML financial services mes-sages, which comply with the SEPA requirements and will be introduced in Estonia in February 2014, are also used in the solution.

“In August, Danske Bank joined the Business Association of the Responsible Business Forum. We did so because the entire group contributes strongly to responsible business. Danske Bank also supports the local business envi-ronment by creating free tools that help companies analyse the market and their own potential development scenarios. The bank has created advertise-ment-free learning tools, such as Rahamaa.ee, in order to increase children's financial awareness.”